


Best-Laid Plans

by TheGreatLibraryFangirl (Mazeem)



Category: The Great Library Series - Rachel Caine
Genre: Angst, Blood and Violence, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Torture, background Khalila/Dario - Freeform, background Wolfe/Santi - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:01:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22253059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mazeem/pseuds/TheGreatLibraryFangirl
Summary: "An unfamiliar black-robed Scholar walked in. Then another. And then another.“What?” Dario blurted, confused and offended. It wasn’t right to just … occupy someone’s office like this!The first Scholar made an obsequious bow. “My apologies, Scholar Santiago,” they said, and then punched Dario in the face."Or, Wolfe and Dario get kidnapped.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 13





	1. Dario

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RosalindInPants](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosalindInPants/gifts).



> Many thank to Rosalind, without whom this fic would not exist. We have the best conversations. 
> 
> Content warning: in case you managed to miss both the tags and the Archive Warning, this will contain gratuitous violence and be heavy on the 'hurt' side of Hurt/Comfort.

It was only when Wolfe knocked sharply on the office door that Dario realised he hadn’t unlocked it in advance of their pre-arranged meeting. He rolled his eyes and flicked the switch under his desk that manually released the lock from the inside. 

There had been a lot of concern over security over the last two years. Mainly the focus was on Khalila’s safety but after their marriage Dario had been forced to accommodate the situation, too. 

An office door that locked automatically, an irritating requirement to alert Khalila’s security team whenever he left the Library premises, a fight every time he wanted to travel in unapproved vehicles … 

But, on the other hand, none of the attempts on Khalila’s life that he knew about (he was certain there were many he didn’t know about, too) had succeeded. 

Even the thought of that made him shiver. He breathed out his silly, everyday tension with the security restrictions. He’d give up a lot more to keep Khalila safe. 

“I’d ask what’s occupying your thoughts, Dario, but I find I rarely want to know the answer to that.” Wolfe swept into the room in his usual perfect swirl of black robes. His acerbic voice roused Dario from his admittedly pointless thoughts. 

Dario considered any number of pleasantries and not-so-pleasantries in response, but there was a sour cast to Wolfe’s expression that warned him against being particularly silver-tongued today. 

“Thank you for agreeing to help me, Scholar,” he said instead, respectfully. 

Wolfe twitched at Dario’s tone, then visibly shook himself. He made no apologies - Dario hadn’t expected him to - but he sat down opposite and took out a notebook and pen. 

“I’ll do anything to spite Vargas,” he said eventually, meeting Dario’s eyes briefly with a dark flash, and Dario grinned in response to the offered humour. 

“I would have thought your relationship couldn’t contain more spite.” 

Wolfe snorted. “As I said, your thoughts are generally unnecessary.” 

Fucking hell, he was spiky today. Oh, well. Best to get on with it. He really did appreciate Wolfe’s offer of help; he’d been trying to get this paper past Vargas for publication for weeks and she kept rejecting it for vague, unhelpful reasons. 

He slid the latest rejection note over to Wolfe first, wondering if there was simply some sort of academic code hidden there that he had yet to learn. It felt like there was a lot of Scholarly life that he’d still not cracked, even after two years. 

Wolfe was a terrifyingly fast reader; within two seconds his eyes had left the page and focused on Dario again.

“How many times have you sent her this?”

“Three.”

“In this form?”

“Yes, more or less.”

Wolfe took his Codex from his pocket. “Send me all the previous submissions and her notes.”

Dario sweated through several uncomfortable minutes as Wolfe reviewed the material. Absentmindedly, he started fiddling with his pen. It was topped with a peacock feather - Jess’ idea of a birthday present - and it was very satisfying to spin around his fingers. 

“If you’d spent as much time on re-drafting as you obviously have on practising pen-spinning, you wouldn’t be in this position,” Wolfe said. His tone was back to antagonistic, and this time Dario couldn’t tamp down his response. He wasn’t a postulant any more, and Wolfe wasn’t his teacher. 

“Jesus, what is with you today? Have you and Nic argued? You can fuck off if you’re going to be this nasty. I’ll take my luck with Vargas.”

Wolfe gave him a quick, unreadable look over his glasses, and for a moment Dario was certain that he was about to storm out. But no; Wolfe exhaled sharply and his shoulders lowered in a movement that looked deliberate. 

“It will be luck, if you keep blindly submitting this. Sloppy structure can’t be hidden by beautiful handwriting.” He started writing in his notebook. “I’ll give you general notes for now, and take the drafts away to look at in detail later.” 

Dario nodded, and tucked ‘ _ Wolfe complimented my handwriting! _ ’ away in the mental esteem boost vault. Even as a half-apology, it was still nice. 

The silence as Wolfe wrote was softer now. 

Dario risked letting his mind wander again, into wondering what he might order for lunch. There was perhaps a ten percent chance that Khalila  _ might _ be free, if her meeting with the Indian ambassadors went particularly quickly. He wasn’t optimistic, but oh, he was ever hopeful. 

A harsh series of chimes from both their Codices made him drop his pen. It rolled off the desk. Wolfe jumped too, and crumpled the page that he was holding. 

“Jesus fuck,” Dario complained, opening his Codex, “if this is Jess again, I’m going to…” He trailed off. An icy lump dropped into his stomach as he read. It was written by Alamasi, Nic’s second in command, but clearly dictated by Nic.

_ High-level threat detected. Curia and visitors secured in Serapeum meeting room. Access to Serapeum forbidden until further notice. _

And then underneath, in Nic’s scrawl,

Stay put in your office, Dario, or by God I’ll have you locked in.

“Oh, go and fuck yourself, Nic.” 

For a strange moment Dario thought that he had somehow projected his thoughts into the air, but no, that snarl had come from Wolfe. He was scowling at his Codex like he wanted to throw it. 

“Did Nic have a special extra note for you, too?” Dario guessed. 

“Making an  _ entirely _ unnecessary point.” Wolfe balled his hands into fists and leant on his forearms. He almost looked like he was sulking. 

Dario hid a smile, because he didn’t have a death wish, and thought that his wild guess of earlier was probably correct. This looked like a fight. 

_ Flower? _ he wrote on the Codex message page, almost without thinking. No response. 

He found himself on his feet, full of tension and terror. This never got easier. 

“You know they put a filter on messages at times like these,” Wolfe said. He’d taken off his glasses and started to flip one of its metal arms up and down. 

It was almost a relief to see Wolfe express some of the same stress that was suddenly twisting Dario’s guts apart. Nic must be in the meeting too. 

“I wonder how long we’ll be stuck here for,” Dario muttered, because that felt less worrying to say than, “I wonder what’s happening up there.”

What was the threat? Poison? Greek fire? Russian explosives? A loner with a weapon? It could be anything. 

Wolfe shrugged. "Something's been brewing for a while, I believe." He put pen back to paper. If Dario didn’t have a lot of evidence to the contrary, he’d be cursing Wolfe for a cold-hearted bastard right now. 

Wait, what had he just said?

"You _knew_ there was a threat on the horizon?"

Wolfe looked up at him, surprised. "Nic does occasionally mention these things." He scowled. "That is, when he deigns to come home."

"Why didn't he tell Khalila?" Dario said, slapping the desktop hard with his hand. Wolfe gave him a cautious and vaguely patronising look that Dario didn't need put into words. 

Nic had told Khalila about potential danger.

Khalila just hadn't told  _ him _ . 

“I need a drink.” Dario shoved his chair back. He took his Codex with him, just in case Khalila responded. 

“Don’t be stupid.”

Wolfe’s tone halted Dario’s steps, but, for the first time that day, not from irritation. It was steady and clearly meant to be reassuring. He put his glasses back on, and the look he gave Dario over them this time was almost sympathetic. “Sit down. Breathe.”

That did not calm Dario down. If the situation was serious enough that Wolfe felt the need to be comforting, then maybe it was even  _ worse _ than he’d thought.

Port slopped messily from the bottle into his glass; his hands were shaking. 

“Drink?” he asked Wolfe curtly. 

“If you’re there anyway.”

He poured them both an absurd amount of port. Debated knocking his back and pouring another. 

“Dario. Sit down.”

“Oh, fuck off.” But he did as he was told. It was a relief. “How are you so fucking calm?” He handed Wolfe his drink and checked his Codex. No message from Khalila. 

Wolfe shrugged again and sipped from the glass. “I’ve spent half my life sending Nic off to war zones. You embrace fatalism or you go mad. I’ve had quite enough of the latter.”

Dario didn’t know how to respond to that. He never did when Wolfe just casually referred to his time in captivity like that. Unless he’d misinterpreted and Wolfe was just saying that he used to worry about Nic, too. It was easy to get oversensitive about that sort of thing. 

“Right,” he said meaninglessly, and took a gulp of port. He couldn’t help but lick his lips as the flavour hit him. 

Ah, proper Portugese bottle-aged vintage. His birthday present from his sister. It would be a shame to slam this back. So he took a smaller mouthful and tried to focus on the flavour, rather than on what might be happening in Serapeum right now. 

His itchy fingers were just reaching for his Codex again, even though it hadn’t made a sound, when Wolfe slid a scrap of paper under his nose. 

“What?” He looked at it. Four sentences, all identical?

“You’ve got a dangling modifier problem. Embarrassing enough if you were Artifex; downright tragic for Litterae. See if you can identity what you should have written.”

Dario wasn’t stupid. He could tell when he was being given a distraction. Still, it was better than his current thought process. 

A few minutes later, they were interrupted from a debate over comma placements by a knock at the door. Dario leapt to his feet. 

Wolfe swivelled one of his shoulders as if it ached. “It won’t be news. You know they’d send that securely.” There was an unsaid but loud “to us” in there, as if he wanted to remind Dario that he wasn’t the only one with a personal stake.

Dario ignored him and hurried around the desk.

But before he got to the door, it opened. Oh, he hadn’t locked it after Wolfe’s entrance. Damn. Good job Nic and Khalila hadn’t seen that. 

An unfamiliar black-robed Scholar walked in. Then another. And then another. 

“What?” Dario blurted, confused and offended. It wasn’t right to just … occupy someone’s office like this!

The first Scholar made an obsequious bow. “My apologies, Scholar Santiago,” they said, and then punched Dario in the face. 

Dario toppled backwards, hitting the back of his head hard on the edge of his desk. The world went black and fuzzy around the edges, and by the time that had mostly cleared, his arms were being held firmly behind his back and someone was tipping something into his mouth.

He squeezed his lips together and clenched his teeth. 

Someone sighed and cuffed the back of his head, and he narrowly avoided blacking out again with the pain that juddered through his whole skull. Then they did something much more effective, and pinched his nose tightly closed.

Dario made a muffled sound of pure frustration as he fruitlessly held what little breath he had in his lungs.

There was a tripwire that would have activated if they had forced entrance past the locked door, and a panic button under the desk. Neither of those precautions had predicted Dario leaving the fucking door open during a fucking security threat. Fuck, he was an idiot.

Adrenalin had given him such extreme tunnel vision that he could barely make sense of the mass of swirling black robes in front of him, but his ears still worked:

“Get that down him!”

“Fuck, the old guy’s armed!”

Someone else cried out, and there was a thud. Like a knife, hitting its target.

“Shit! Is he retired Garda or something?”

Dario’s chest twitched and convulsed with the desperate urge to breathe. It didn’t surprise him that Wolfe was armed. Fucking kill them all, Wolfe. 

“Just kill him!”

“He’s a gold band, don’t kill him!”

“Hurry up!”

Don’t kill Wolfe, Dario thought, trying to distract himself as the painful spasms in his chest reached unbearable proportions. His entire body bucked in the tight grip of its captor, but to no avail. Wolfe doesn’t deserve to die because I was an idiot. 

Then he lost his fight with his lungs, and opened his mouth to breathe. Instantly the lip of the glass vial was forced into his mouth, crashing painfully against a tooth. He tried to spit as much of it out as he could, but was forced to swallow some of the foul, thick liquid or choke. 

“That should do. How long til the diversion blows?”

Blows? A bomb. Greek Fire or explosive? 

Didn’t matter. Khalila was in danger.

Unconsciousness pulled at Dario beguilingly, but he dug the painful back of his head into whatever was behind him and tried to struggle. His efforts were to no avail; his captor shoved him forwards and he hit the carpet like a landed fish, gasping helplessly and wriggling as he felt cuffs close around his wrists.

His mind taunted him as he sank into unconsciousness with the image of Khalila dead and bleeding, so far away from him. 

* * *

The next thing Dario knew, it was black. Not just dark, but completely black. His head was pounding fit to split and he groaned with the pain. 

A moment more of feeling wretched, then his thoughts began to resurface. Shit! Khalila! A bomb threat! He had to - 

Oh, but trying to get up made his head throb even worse. Oh, fuck. 

“Lie still, Dario.” That was Wolfe’s voice. Dario tried to turn towards him, but where was he? He couldn’t see. Moving made the floor underneath him lurch alarmingly. Wood, his fingers told him. Right. That was a start. 

“Wh-” He’d intended to ask where they were, but his words came out mushy. He could taste blood in his mouth, and once he’d realised that, he also realised that he could taste vomit too. 

That didn’t seem to stop Wolfe putting his hand over his mouth. Just gently. 

“Take a minute.”

Dario ignored the advice. There were more important things to worry about. He reached up and tried to bat Wolfe’s hand away. He succeeded only in clinging to his forearm like a frightened child, but for some reason Wolfe made an approving noise and moved his hand away. 

“Khalila,” Dario said insistently. 

Wolfe made an odd sort of noise. Like a snort and a laugh. 

“Not the immediate issue.”

Dario intended to ask why Wolfe thought that, but all that came out was a hopeful, high-pitched sound. He gave it up as a bad job. 

The floor rocked underneath him. It made him feel dizzy, but it lulled him, too. 

Some time later, he came back to his senses, and immediately regretted it. His head was in agony.

“Fuck,” he complained. 

“Feeling better?” Wolfe said dryly. 

“Fuck,” he said again. He tried to pat the area around him to get an idea of his surroundings and realised that he was handcuffed. There was a wall behind him. He dragged himself into a sitting position and leant against it. His mouth tasted absolutely disgusting, and one of his teeth was loose. Blood and vomit and … and whatever the fuck they’d made him drink. “What happened?”

“What do you remember?” Wolfe’s voice was low, and Dario tried to adjust his own volume in tandem. It was difficult when his ears were ringing. 

“Nothing that makes sense. Someone punched me and made me drink something.” Chill flashed through his veins. “They said they had a bomb! We need to …” He trailed off halfway through his panicked sentence and looked at Wolfe’s faint outline in the dark. “I suppose we can’t very well alert Nic from here. And it’s too late, isn’t it?” He managed to say that without crying, just about. 

“Do you still feel sick?” Wolfe asked.

“That doesn’t matter, it’s-”

“Khalila and Nic will have to manage for themselves. So will we.” Wolfe was irritatingly calm. “Now. Nausea?”

Dario could see Wolfe’s point, but panic for Khalila still made his heart flutter in his throat. 

He tried to focus on the question. Did he feel sick? He wasn’t sure. It was very dark in here, wherever they were, and stuffy, and he felt off-balance both physically and metally.

“No?” 

Dario rubbed his jaw, and only then realised that his wrists were cuffed together. Everything hurt. “Did they drug you, too?” he asked, trying to make sense of it all. 

“No. I suspect they only brought one dose.”

“Wait, you think they were after  _ me _ ?” Dario would have laughed, if his stiff jaw and pounding head had allowed it. 

“It was your office, and you were the one they went straight for. Yes, I do.”

Dario tried to mull this over. It was difficult. “Fuck, it’s like I’m thinking through mud.” Automatically he jerked his head back to hit the wall behind him out of frustration, only to get a much softer impact than anticipated; Wolfe’s hand. It still hurt like fuck, though, and made his headache boom again. 

“Why are you such an  _ idiot _ ? Mind your head!” For all its sharpness, Wolfe’s voice stayed quiet. His other hand grasped Dario’s shoulder, supporting him. 

“It hurts,” Dario mumbled pointlessly. 

“Yes, I’m not surprised. You’re doing much better now, though.”

“Better than what?”

Wolfe sighed. “This is the fifth time we’ve spoken. This is the first decent conversation we’ve had.”

“Oh.” Dario’s lethargic mind skipped over that a few times to worry about Khalila again, but he wrenched it back. So he’d not been fully conscious. Yes, all right. Probably shouldn’t be bashing his head against walls. “First time in a while you’ve accused me of decent conversation, Wolfe.”

Wolfe chuckled. It sounded relieved. “Might be the only reason I’m alive, too. They weren’t expecting me to shout at them about the dangers of combining head injuries with incredibly strong sedatives.”

Dario imagined this. It was always easy to think of Wolfe in full lecturing mode, striding around and glaring at you. Postulancy had stuck, one way or the other.

He got lost in the strangeness of their postulancy for a long moment - stupid, sticky thoughts - and missed a bit of what Wolfe said next. 

“-in here with you, to make sure none of my dire threats came true.”

A memory returned. “You were armed, they said.” Wolfe made a soft sound of approval. “Did you kill anyone? Are  _ you  _ hurt?”

His throat went tight with panic at the mere idea that Wolfe might not be dependable, then he hated himself for it. Head injury be damned, there was no reason to be that pathetic. He’d thought of Oxford, that was the problem. Wolfe wasn’t his teacher any more. His protector. 

“Are you hurt?” he asked again. Like a peer should. There was an odd pause, and Dario realised that he had probably missed a reply. God  _ damn _ his brain. If only he could think properly!

Wolfe’s hand on his shoulder was moving now, in gentle pats. “A sore arm. That’s all. Shut your eyes, now. I can practically hear your thoughts limping in circles.”

As if he’d only been waiting for permission, Dario felt the dizzy heaviness of sleep crawl over him. 

As sleep descended, his subconscious released something else it had been saving up; they were in a carriage. Or attached to one, anyway. That swaying motion. He opened his mouth to say, out of habit, “Wake me up when we get there.”

Except where were they going? What would happen when they got there?

Sleep stole any answers from him. 


	2. Khalila

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Khalila and Nic learn that Dario and Wolfe are missing, presumed captured.

Khalila sighed with relief as everyone’s Codices pinged with an “All-clear” message. She successfully fought the urge to instantly start bombarding Nic with messages (had that been an _explosive_ she’d heard?) and instead smiled at the Indian ambassadors. 

“It won’t be long until we’re released,” she said reassuringly. Just as she began to pour more tea for Ambassador Ghosh, the protective shutters started to roll up with a clatter. She jumped, and spilt tea in a little pool. “Oh dear, I’m sorry!”

“It’s no problem, Archivist.” Ambassador Ghosh dropped her own green-edged handkerchief on top of the spillage. “Does this sort of disturbance happen a lot?” Her eyes were sharp. 

Khalila kept her smile light and airy. She didn't particularly like being called the bare title, "Archivist," since it reminded her too much of her predecessor, and she'd made that clear. “More often than I’d prefer, but not enough to get used to it, I’m afraid.”

The ambassador nodded and smiled, and thankfully left the boundary-pushing at that.

Soon the Indian contingent was duly on their way, escorted by an assistant who would ensure the rest of their stay at the Library was nothing short of flawless. 

_Everything is a weakness_ , Khalila thought dully, rolling her neck from side to side to try and force it to crack. _Especially the things we cannot help_. 

Her Codex alerted her to a cascade of delayed messages, and she winced at the noise. Only she and her head of personal security, Captain Gurung, were left in the meeting room now, so she could indulge in genuine reactions. 

She did try very hard to keep a truthful tone to her interactions as Archivist, but there was rarely any benefit to showing irritation or tiredness. 

She skimmed the messages for the one that she knew must be there - yes, received moments after Nic had shut the building down.

_Flower?_

_Scare over_ , she wrote back to Dario. She was about to write ‘We’re all fine,’ but then she realised that she had no idea whether that was true or not. 

“Were there any injuries or fatalities, Captain?”

Captain Gurung shook her head. “Not as far as I’m aware, Archivist Seif.” 

Khalila nodded, and added _We’re all fine_ to her message to Dario. 

After a few minutes had passed, there was still no response. Unusual. Perhaps it was a good sign, and meant that his little chat with Wolfe that she wasn’t supposed to know about was distracting him successfully from his anxiety.

There was a knock on the door. Captain Gurung eyed her Codex, then tapped the button that unlocked the script-controlled lock on the door. 

“Commander,” Khalila said with a smile. Her shoulder relaxed, just a little.

Nic nodded and smiled back. “Unofficial report time.” He leaned on the back of a chair. He didn’t quite look relaxed, but he looked an awful lot better than he had when he’d called shut-down and hurried out of the door a scant half an hour ago. 

“Was there an explosive? Was anyone hurt?”

“Yes, there was a Russian-style bomb launched at the eastern gates of the Serapeum, but no-one was hurt. Well, Thomas would disagree - one automaton was damaged.”

Khalila smiled. Yes, Thomas would probably be unhappy about that.

“We’ve only got the one dead perpetrator at the minute, so you’ll stay under heavy security until we know there aren’t any more running around. Quite a few people saw him set off the mechanism. Which reminds me. Thomas and Greta will want to look at that.” Nic shrugged and shifted his feet. “The Obscurists are running through records as we speak - it should have been impossible for someone without a band to get that close to the Serapeum.”

Khalila opened her mouth to say something reassuring about how she was certain something would turn up, but she was interrupted by a Codex message sound.

She checked hers - was it Dario at last? 

No, it was Nic’s Codex. 

He scanned it and frowned thoughtfully. “Potential lead. Troll’s saying he’s got reports of a squad carrying off a couple of Scholars in cuffs down by the Library.” He rolled his eyes. “If that’s the German lot ignoring chain of command _again_ , I’ll have them shipped home, training or no training.”

That was an empty threat, Khalila thought fondly. If anything, Alexandria was known to _over_ -train its foreign units. Glain sarcastically called it the “Never trust the colonies,” approach, behind Nic’s back, where they couldn't get into another fight about the independence of local troops. 

Scholars in cuffs? Dissident Scholars were rarer than they had been in the initial upheaval of the revolution, but still a danger. 

Khalila sighed. If these Scholars were proven to be responsible for an attack on the Serapeum, they would certainly have to be removed from the Library. She didn’t like doing that. 

She reached for her Codex. 

_Won’t be completely free for a while yet_ , she wrote to Dario, _but I’ll come and find you when I am_. 

He would still be jittery, she imagined, and she wasn’t exactly calm either, knowing that if she weren’t surrounded by such experts she could have been killed. Again. Still in danger, even after two years. 

She sighed. Yes. A little jittery herself. She would find time for her and Dario to snuggle up together and eat something sugary. 

More messages were coming in now. She prioritised Jess, Thomas and Glain’s messages, replying quickly to them with a series of doodles to show that she was fine but not available for full conversation. She was surprised that Thomas was aware of the situation, to be honest. Perhaps he had a day off today. 

When she looked back up at Nic, he was frowning hard at his Codex. 

“Got to go chase that sighting …” he muttered as if excusing himself, pushing his chair back. Right at that moment, there was a knock at the door.

“Commander?” Khalila recognised the voice: Captain Nofret Alamasi, Nic’s second-in-command. 

She looked a touch dishevelled as she stuck her head around the door. Her eyes flicked to Khalila, who carefully averted her gaze and pretended to be engrossed in her Codex. The illusion of privacy. 

_Having fun with Wolfe?_ she wrote to Dario, to look busy and also, despite herself, in the hope of a response. 

“Commander, there’s been some sort of incursion into the Lighthouse.”

Khalila’s heart juddered in her chest. Dario had been in his office, which was of course in the Lighthouse. 

She was being paranoid, but:

 _Answer me when you see this_ , she wrote. 

“That report from Rolleson? I haven’t received follow-up yet.” Nic picked up his Codex and glanced at it again. “Which squad was it? Did the Obscurists get back to you with a list of accessed locks? Have they looked at the offenders’ journals?”

“There’s a lot of confusion, sir.” There was a very strange tone in Alamasi’s voice. Khalila looked up at her, ignoring politeness. Nic’s eyes, too, narrowed. 

“Unreliable eyewitness, sir,” Alamasi continued. “We don’t believe those soldiers were actually High Garda. All our squads are accounted for, and no-one has checked anyone into any holding cell.”

“Shit!” Nic flung himself to his feet. “Chase them!”

“Yes, sir. In progress, sir. The gates are all closed and we’ve sent notices across the borders.” Alamasi still looked uncomfortable. 

Two Scholars had been led away by mystery forces. 

Two. 

Khalila coughed, half to catch their attention and half to clear the sudden lump in her throat. 

“Do you know the identity of the Scholars involved?” 

“A number of Scholars are not currently located. We assume it’s two of those. I sent a squad round to search, and we’ll know more very soon.”

“Which ones?” That had come out in the declarative tone of the Archivist Magister. 

Nic looked sharply at her. “What is it?”

“I haven’t heard from Dario. That’s unheard of after a security alert.” The chill of fear seeped into her more quickly now, and she fought the urge to tremble. 

“Is he on that list of missing Scholars?” Nic demanded. 

“Yes, sir.”

Khalila gasped. Tried to catch her breath. Couldn’t. There was no air, suddenly, in this room. Only her worst nightmare, come to life. 

Her stomach twisted and her chest started to hurt. 

She didn’t want to imagine it, not at _all_ , _ever_ , but her mind spewed up something anyway, slick with bloody memories; his blood staining the Lighthouse floor when he’d been captured before, his bruised and swollen face on the arena floor. 

She could almost hear him breaking, pleading. 

Her husband, her darling, her most precious one.

“Archivist Seif,” Captain Gurung said in her ear, low and concerned.

Khalila could barely hear her over the hammering of her own heartbeat -

_\- Dario, my Dario -_

But, still, she heard. 

Archivist. 

I am more than tiny, terrified Khalila Seif, she reminded herself. I am the Pharaoh of Alexandria. I am the embodiment of the Great Library, for all that I am not worthy of the honour. 

I must be better than this.

She breathed in and out. In a practised mental manoeuvre, she raised her chin for the full ceremonial crown and settled her shoulders for the intricate cloth-of-gold robe. It was a little ritual she sometimes enacted before difficult meetings. 

Carefully, she recalled the physicality of the symbols: the ache of her neck and shoulders after more than an hour in the heavy crown; the way that the luxurious robe made her perspire and made her hands itch if she gripped a fold of it under the table, as she was prone to do in stressful moments. 

Sometimes this responsibility choked her and strained her, but right now the ghostly weight gave her something to brace against, and the tight bindings stopped her from flying apart.

When she opened her eyes, she could breathe again. Even her vision seemed sharper. 

Her panic was locked safely away. She would express it later, privately, where such things belonged. Falling apart now would serve no purpose.

A change had come over Nic, too, while she had been struggling with herself. His did not appear to be beneficial. 

He took a slow step forwards. 

“Is Chris on that list, Captain?” His voice was light and friendly. “Has that information been passed up the chain from coward to coward until the buck stopped with you to come and tell me that?”

“Sir.” Alamasi looked over Nic’s shoulder. 

Khalila didn’t blame her. Nic’s deceptive tone meant that he was ready to kill. She’d heard it used in earnest several times while they were on the run, and although she didn’t actually think Nic would lose control of himself enough to initiate violence here and now, the memory of those other times made the hairs stand up on the back of her neck.

“Nic, that’s unfair of you,” she said. Her voice came out gratifyingly calm and cool. 

Nic turned and gave Khalila a quick, blank look, then returned his attention to Alamasi. His gaze was intent. Predatory. 

“Sir, we are doing everything we -”

Nic smiled. Alamasi flinched. 

“Someone’s certainly done everything they could and made a success of it, but I don’t think it’s us, do you?” He straightened his collar. “Chris is certainly a valid target for a kidnapping.” He smiled again, broad and toothy. “The brass balls of them, _bombing the Serapeum_ as a _distraction_.” 

Khalila straightened her shoulders and tried again. “Lord Commander Santi, this is not an effective way to instruct your second.”

The look he gave her this time was downright hostile. He rounded, next, on Khalila’s captain Gurung. 

“Is Dario not included in Khalila’s security plans?”

Khalila didn’t think he realised he had slipped into using everyone’s first names. It didn’t particularly matter, in this company, except as another sign of the riptide running under his superficial calm.

“No, Commander.” Gurung met his eyes, unlike Alamasi, but she also squared her stance as if expecting a blow. “We reduced Scholar Santiago’s coverage several months ago. There has never been as much as a threat to his person before, and he was nowhere near the apparent danger this time.” Her voice was dispassionate, but her expression was crumpled and guilty. 

“Yes, I know, we all missed the fucking danger,” Nic muttered, as if to himself. He rubbed his arm, where Khalila knew his burn scar from Philadelphia lay under his shirt, and flexed his hands in and out of fists. His deadly calm was starting to slip away.

Khalila looked past him to Alamasi. “Captain, do you require further information from the commander?”

“Not immediately, Magister.”

Khalila nodded. “I will sign for any Library resource or connection you require.”

Alamasi hesitated before she nodded. As well she should. Khalila had just sidestepped Nic in the command hierarchy, which was wrong in many different ways.

As Khalila had suspected, it took Nic a moment to process that. Then he turned to her, balanced easily on the balls of his feet, and gave her his most charming smile.

“Do we need to have a chat, Archivist Magister Seif?”

She met his open, smiling face with her own, raising her chin. He was using her title sarcastically, but it was true anyway. “We do.”

Alamasi left without a word. Gurung looked at Khalila and sighed.

“I’ll be on the door, Magister.”

Nic rounded on her, nostrils flared and eyes wide. “What the _fuck_ , Khalila?”

She stayed seated. One of them had to remain in control, after all. “You can’t be in command if your subordinates are terrified you might assault them for breathing.”

“That’s not your call!”

She noticed that he didn’t bother arguing the veracity of her claim.

“I believe you’ll find that it _is_ my call.” 

He stared at her, then rubbed his face and sighed. “And what about you?” He gestured broadly and disrespectfully at her. His hand shook. “You think you can run your normal meetings in Ice Queen mode?”

She shrugged. “Maybe not.” She stared at him in silence, and watched his self-control flake away with each passing heartbeat.

He scowled at her. “Fine. I’ll take an hour or two. Make some plans.”

Her heart lurched. He was so transparent in his rage and desperation. 

“Don’t go, Nic. Don’t disappear after them.” She bit her lip. That had come out too soft. Too plaintive. Her own composure wobbled and she breathed deeply to steel herself anew. 

He laughed harshly. “Isn’t that rich, coming from you? Coming from _us_?” He turned away from her and paced to the window like a caged lion. 

“We took the time to research where Thomas was.”

“Mm. Well, Chris’ infernal mother can’t pull strings for us this time.” He shuddered all over and gripped the windowsill. 

“Don’t go, Nic. _Promise_ me.”

He stayed silent. Tension held his entire body taut; she could see his raised shoulders and the blanched skin over his clenched fists.

“I’m sure it wouldn’t do any good, even if I did,” he said softly. “I’d only fail at that, too.” He lowered his head and pushed his forehead against the glass. 

Concern made itself known through the smooth, glassy calm in her head. There was a far easier target for Nic’s rage than any of his soldiers.

“Nic, please, just …” She stepped closer. 

He shook his head sharply, interrupting her. 

“Give me a minute, Khalila. Give me a minute to daydream about all sorts of things that would have no effect, and then I’ll be back, I promise, and we’ll find them if we have to rip the world apart to do it.”

Revenge blazed in Khalila’s chest, called in answer to Nic’s words and tone. 

If they hurt her Dario … She swallowed bile. And Wolfe! Dearest Wolfe, if they made him suffer anew ...

Lord Commander and Archivist Magister. Together, they likely _could_ rip the world apart. She shook with the poisonous strength of the concept.

“We could. So, we musn’t,” she said eventually, in a breathless whisper. 

He laughed as if his heart was breaking.

“Oh, get out of my sight, you fucking paragon of virtue.” 

That could have been painful, if she had let it be. But, she would not. 

As she calmly turned to leave, she heard the breath quaking out of him in deep, dry sobs.


	3. Wolfe

Wolfe braced himself as the carriage braked and jolted to a stop. The hatch separating the carriage from their container slid back, and the end of a gun was poked through. 

Wolfe expected the same, "Keep your mouth shut!" that had heralded past stops. 

Rather than hushing them like every time before, this time their guard said, 

"If you struggle or shout, you'll regret it."

That was all the warning he gave before the door slid back. After hours in the stifling, windowless dark, the sudden light blinded Wolfe, and he flung up his hand as a pathetic barrier. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Dario doing the same thing.

Whoever was sat there had a Spanish accent. During the attack in Dario’s office, the attackers had spoken in Spanish. It seemed, in the absence of other evidence, like a decent support to Wolfe’s vague working theory that the target had been Dario, rather than himself. 

Silhouettes approached with outstretched hands. Wolfe suppressed the instinct to fight back and prayed that Dario had the sense to do likewise. Dario had steadily recovered his senses as their journey into the unknown had continued, but the last thing he needed was another blow to the head.

Wolfe shut his eyes and concentrated on his steady breathing as he was hooded roughly and yanked out by his cuffs. His injured arm protested the force with a terrible wrenching ache and he couldn't quite stop himself from hissing in pain. 

"Hey!" 

It took Wolfe a moment to realise that Dario's outrage was not on his own behalf.  _ Idiot,  _ he thought. _ We just spoke about this. Don't show them you care _ . 

It was dangerous to be known to care. It made you so much more vulnerable. 

A number of very dark memories stirred at the back of his mind. He dismissed them. The image of Nic’s scarred chest was trickier, but he managed that, too.

Anyway. He was a hypocrite being critical of Dario, when he’d half-persuaded and half-bullied the attackers to take him along to stop semi-conscious Dario choking to death on his own vomit. 

(He hadn’t been entirely selfish. It had been that or be killed.)

The person holding the chain joining his cuffs pulled it taut, dragging him forwards and fully out of the vehicle. Obediently Wolfe followed the verbal instructions and physical prompts, ending up with his cuffed hands pressed against the metal container they had been trapped in. His arm protested even those minor movements.

It still felt like Alexandrian temperatures against his skin, which was damp with perspiration from their stifling confinement. They probably hadn’t travelled south, then. He added that to his depressingly small store of information. 

Someone patted him down, roughly but quite thoroughly. 

Nic would have picked holes in the technique.

Wolfe had experienced far worse.

Neither of those thoughts were appealing, so he shook them away, and listened to Dario sigh and mumble obscenities as he suffered the same treatment.

Checking Dario over made at least a vestige of sense, since they had merely slung Dario's semi-conscious body into the container at the start of the journey. But they had already checked Wolfe for weaponry. What were they expecting, that he'd cobbled something together out of nothing at all? 

No, doing this again was just intimidation. 

At least the cuffs were bearable; light and with a reasonable range of movement. Their hands were cuffed in front of them, which was gentler than any of the alternatives. 

Dario probably wouldn't agree. The cuffs were probably quite uncomfortable to someone without Wolfe's… experience. 

Wolfe had spent the dark travelling hours carefully shoring himself up, pulling out every distraction and coping mechanism that he could. But already his defenses were faltering. 

It wasn't the pain from his arm that had shaken him, though that was worryingly intense. Pain was an uncomfortable old acquaintance. 

No, it was the helplessness. He wished that they hadn’t gone straight from a dark box to the blindness of this hood. 

_ What next? _ asked his mind, in perfect time to his racing heartbeat.  _ What next, what next, what next, what next?  _

There were so very many options, after all. 

He stumbled blindly after the captor who had hold of his cuff chain. 

Once upon a time, he’d become quite adept at reading the leading person’s body movements through a taut chain, but he hadn’t thought about that for years and he didn’t really want to do so now, so when his foot met an unexpected step, he pitched straight over. 

He twisted as he fell, trying to avoid catching his weight on his bad arm, and landed with a thump on his shoulder. That wasn’t exactly painless, either. 

Raucous laughter greeted his fall, and someone kicked him in the stomach.

He wasn’t certain why this violence relieved him, until his mind pulled the veil back on a memory.

Sometimes they hadn’t let him find his feet again. Sometimes they had just kept walking and he’d had to scrabble after them as best he could, splintering his nails on the rough stone floor while the chain around his neck choked him - 

And that was quite enough of  _ that _ . 

Wolfe put his palms flat on the floor and pushed himself up. 

“All right, grandfather, up you get!” More laughter.

Wolfe rolled his eyes, glad for a distraction worthy of mockery. The difference that the colour of mere hair could make to people’s perceptions was fascinating. Even with his earlier performance, where he’d wounded several of them and taken them utterly by surprise, they still underestimated him purely because his hair was prematurely grey. 

Interestingly, there were no further surprise steps once they set off again. Instead, someone warned them of hazards in advance. 

Perhaps their captors were on their best behaviour now, in this new environment. Perhaps they had been told not to damage the prisoners. That added credence to Wolfe’s current working theory that they were going to be held for ransom. 

Or perhaps he was just being optimistic and the damage was yet to come. 

A few moments later, Wolfe was shoved through an open door. He heard Dario hit the ground next to him, then his cuffs went slack as if they had finally been let go of, and his hood was removed. They snagged a handful of his hair in the process, and he couldn’t help but let out a cry at the sudden, painful jerk. 

_Pathetic_ , he scolded himself. He rolled and shuffled as quickly as he could to get his back to a wall. No-one stopped him. 

The combination of dark-adjusted eyes and his lack of glasses played havoc with his vision, and it took him a moment to squint enough to make everything out. 

They were in a small room with an inbuilt glow in the wall. It looked like an abandoned office. Wolfe had tucked himself away underneath what were probably cupboards, if they matched the other side of the room, but Dario had pulled himself awkwardly up onto a box. 

Dario looked a little better. Mind you, that wasn’t too difficult, since the last time Wolfe had got a look at him in the light, he had been only vaguely conscious. 

Dario’s lips were torn and swollen where he had been punched, and his hair and forehead were glistening with perspiration from their container travels. His face was very pale and his hands were folded tightly in his lap. 

And he was staring at Wolfe with a look of utmost horror. 

“What?”

“You’re covered in blood!” Dario unlinked his fingers to gesture wildly at his own shoulder. 

It took Wolfe a second to understand, and when he did he smirked at the disproportionate reaction.

“Oh, that’s nothing.” He reached up to his right earlobe, which was fully split where his earring had been ripped out during the fight in Dario’s office. 

He’d taken the other one out as soon as he wasn’t being watched. He hoped, foolishly, that it still lay where he had dropped it, so that Nic might see it.

His neck was rough with long-dried blood. It had been a sharp pain at the time, but it was almost unnoticeable now unless he touched the raw flesh.

Now, that was a life lesson he didn’t need to learn:  _ It doesn’t hurt if you don’t touch it _ . 

Of the changes in his life and body that he’d had to mourn, an imperfect earlobe was the least of his problems. Maybe he would even take the opportunity to finally get a cartilage piercing.

Oh, that was nice. A bit of optimism. He clung to that thought as he watched Dario frantically take his own earring out, a dangling emerald with a gold and diamond setting.

“I’m surprised they’ve not already taken that. It looks expensive,” he said. As was typical for Dario, of course.

Dario nodded absentmindedly. “It’s Khalila’s,” he said. Wolfe watched the panic rise in his expression, then watched with relief as Dario settled himself. 

That was a very good sign that the effects of the sedative they had drugged him with had finally completely worn off. Wolfe had been getting very frustrated with having the same conversation over and over again. 

Dario stared at the earring for a moment with his brow furrowed in thought. “A bribe?” he asked. Wolfe sighed and opened his mouth to reply, but Dario shook his head. “No, sorry, that’s what you meant. It’s a surprise they haven’t already taken it, because they could have. Yes. Probably not amenable to bribery.” He sighed and leant his head onto one hand. “Fuck.”

“How are you feeling?” Wolfe started to worm out from his little nook.

“Fantastic. Never been better. Admiring our surroundings.” 

“Oh, do shut up.”

To Wolfe’s surprise, Dario did as he was told, and let Wolfe tilt his head to get a better look. A bruise was darkening and swelling on his jaw where he had been punched, and Wolfe could see dried blood along Dario’s gum line when he managed a brief smile. 

“Head forwards.”

The back of his head was more of a mess. Dried blood matted his hair, and he winced as Wolfe tried to get down to the scalp. Wolfe gave up on that; it was too dark anyway. 

“Do you feel sick?”

Dario gave him a sarcastic look. “I think I’d know if I was concussed. And even if I was, do you think it matters?” He flung his hands out dramatically.

Wolfe rolled his eyes and turned to go back to his sitting position, but he stopped when Dario reached up to put a hand on his shoulder. 

“What’s wrong with your arm?”

Oh. Yes. That. 

“An old injury got jarred. It’s nothing.”

Dario looked up at him. “Fair’s fair. You’ve seen mine.”

“I looked at you because I have basic field Medica training,” Wolfe grumbled, even as he rolled up his sleeve. 

Nic would be proud of him ~~for giving in~~ for allowing his own ~~vulnerability~~ injury to be seen without a fuss. 

He hissed despite himself as Dario pulled that arm sideways to get a better look. 

“Sorry!”

Dario let go, looking alarmed. 

Wolfe hadn’t had a chance to get a look yet himself. 

What he saw unnerved him: his wrist was already starting to show lines of darkening bruises almost exactly where they had formed originally, two years ago in the Serapeum cell. 

Fractured again, then, at the old badly healed point. Lovely.

“That bruise looks painful,” Dario said. Wolfe managed not to roll his eyes at Dario’s concerned tone, while thanking any deity listening that Dario’s knowledge was so limited. 

“It’s bearable. How’s your headache?”

Dario gave him that sarcastic sideways glance again. “Bearable.”

Wolfe’s lips curved up. “All right.”

He returned to his space under the cupboard. 

“Why are you down there, anyway?” Dario leaned down to make eye contact. “That doesn't look comfortable.”

“It’s quite comfortable.” He tucked his painful arm back into his jacket, to support it, and pushed himself backwards until his back hit the wall. Then he curled up into a ball, which he knew his back would loudly remonstrate him for later. 

He was playing a tricky game with himself. The tight, three-sides-closed space that was currently helping him to relax could at any moment become a confined potential trap that made his heart race. Still. No point in worrying about it before it happened.

“So, if they don’t want us for ransom …” Dario trailed off, rubbing his earring between his fingers. “Blackmail?”

“Perhaps.” 

“Don’t suppose they left you your Codex?”

Wolfe didn’t even grace that with a response. Both their Codices were presumably still on Dario’s desk, along with their Scholar bands which had been removed before they’d been dragged out of the office. He couldn’t think of anything else that might be trackable. 

“They’re Spanish,” he said, to try and tamp down his irrational annoyance with Dario. “Did you notice?”

Dario’s mouth opened slowly. “No. I didn’t.” He rubbed his jaw again. “Right. Fuck. You  _ said _ you thought they’d come for me.”

“Yes. On the other hand, kidnappers can be any nationality.” Wolfe watched Dario, who was staring intently at the ground in front of him like he was thinking hard. “I don’t suppose you know of any Spanish issues? Nic assured me the king was on good terms with the reformed Library, but I suppose there are always breakaway sects.”

Dario nodded. “Always sects,” he said vaguely. 

Wolfe frowned at him. “Hm?” 

Dario blinked at the meaningful hum, and looked up at Wolfe. “Well, the Basques are always agitating. But that’s not very … Library. Alvaro said something the other day about the Barcelona Serapeum still causing a fuss.”

“Ah.” Wolfe considered this. One of the lasting effects of the Library revolution that he had never expected was that certain countries had started to show their resentment for having “Library territory” in their cities. 

Khalila  _ had  _ apparently been expecting this, genius that she undeniably was, and there was currently a complex series of negotiations ongoing regarding the issue, with solutions ranging from an inserted line in the new treaties to never bring High Garda into countries via Translation to Serapeums, to conversion of the buildings into mere libraries. 

(Wolfe hated the concept of cutting the Serapeums off from physical access to Alexandria, but no-one had considered his consent necessary, and in a way that relieved him.)

Spain as a whole had complained about this a while ago, but Wolfe had thought that was sorted. He didn’t realise the dissent had started to settle at the community level.

“Barcelona. That’s where you’re from, isn’t it?”

Dario shrugged, then nodded. “Just outside, but yes.” He narrowed his eyes for a moment. “I don’t think any of them had a Catalonian accent. I’d have noticed.”

“You didn’t notice they were Spanish.”

“I was a bit fucked-up at the time,” Dario snapped. His shoulders dropped again almost immediately. “I  _ always  _ notice a Catalonian accent, especially Barcelona. It sounds like ... a lack of accent.”

_ Sounds like home, does it, Dario? _ Wolfe thought, and bit his tongue to keep that nasty comment inside his mouth. He knew Dario had a complicated relationship with both his family and his country. 

“So, blackmail, then,” Dario continued when Wolfe didn’t reply. “Kidnap me until the Library agrees to close the Barcelona Translation Chamber … expel all the Library staff … whatever their demands are.”

“Seems extreme. I’d expect petitions to be landing on your desk, instead. Trying to turn you to the cause.”

Dario frowned. “Why? I’m only a Scholar.”

Wolfe blinked in utter disbelief and stared hard at Dario. “I know you’re not that stupid.”

Dario ducked his head in what looked like embarrassment, but his voice was firm when he replied,

“We keep job and relationship very separate, you know that.”

Wolfe nodded. He was aware that the concept, aimed to help to negate fears of Spain influencing the Library, had been part of their horribly complicated marriage negotiations. 

“We always have, and we’ve made that clear,” Dario continued. He straightened up, looking more lively than he had done since the attack on his office. “Unless asked I don’t offer my opinion on any high-level Curia information she reveals, and likewise she doesn’t involve herself in my research unless I ask her to.” He shrugged. “I could be the most ravening Catalonian separatist known to man, and you would never seen an iota of it in Library policy unless she had independently come to her own conclusions. I had a few words about this with Alvaro, once. I believe all the corridors of power in Spain know that I have no influence on the Archivist’s decisions.”

He said that with pride, Wolfe thought. And he’d thought he and Nic had a strong separation between personal and professional. 

Well, it took all sorts. 

Time to state the obvious: “So, if the professional approach would never work, it makes sense for whoever they are to force Khalila’s decision-making into the personal sphere.”

Dario nodded. “By kidnapping me.” He smiled crookedly. “Personally, I believe they’ve just ruined any chance they might have had. Khalila will be furious. They couldn’t have hardened her heart more if they’d tried.”

Wolfe raised his eyebrows. Was Dario just being obtuse? “Do you believe she’s unmovable, with your wellbeing as a playing piece?” 

Dario frowned. Wolfe barrelled on. “Does this look like we’re being kept in the lap of luxury? You could be  _ hurt _ .”

His heart was racing all of a sudden, and his whole body trembled with the effort of keeping his breathing steady. It’s just frustration, he told himself firmly.

Dario scoffed. “I’ve been beaten before. I can take it.” There was pity in his gaze; Wolfe could see it.

Every rebuttal he came up with took him down routes he didn’t want to go. 

_ There are worse things they can do to you than beat you _ . 

_You were beaten for one measly night_. 

No, Dario was right; Wolfe was overreacting. Drawing too strongly from his own experience. 

His treatment had been an utter anomaly. Most likely Dario would just end up getting a black eye or two. More cuts to his lips.

_ Broken cheekbone, broken ribs, tongue half chewed off, scabs that stretched and tore when he turned his head or opened his mouth - _

The litany sang on in his head, and he shook his head as if that might help.

“We should check the cupboards,” he said, and started to manoeuvre out of the confined space. “There might be some clue as to our location.”

Some time later, Wolfe heard footsteps approaching. He quietly closed the drawer he had been rifling through. That alerted Dario, who glanced from Wolfe to the door and  _ then _ heard the footsteps. 

Wolfe sighed. His chest was tight. He hoped he was wrong about the …  _ potential  _ of their captivity. Dario wasn’t prepared.

_ Neither were you _ .

The door opened. To Wolfe’s surprise and horror, Dario charged straight towards the doorway. 

The man who was stood in the doorway stepped forwards and almost casually leaned his full weight into Dario, banging their chests together. Dario staggered backwards, unbalanced, and the man followed him with the calm confidence of a predator, grabbing his wrists and swinging them above his head, shoving a knee threateningly between Dario’s legs. 

Dario’s wild eyes turned towards Wolfe, as if seeking help, then sharpened in what looked like temper. 

Wolfe realised that he was backed flat against a wall, hands visible and open and  _ not a threat _ . His legs felt weak and shaky and he’d lost complete control over his breathing. 

Was Dario right? Could they have forced their way out of the room together?

No. Even if they’d managed that first step, what would come next? They didn’t know where they were or what was going on. They would just have been recaptured and then punished. 

Good thoughts, Christopher, he snarled at himself. Very logical. Makes you sound so sensible and trustworthy. 

_ Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me _ , babbled his deeper thoughts. 

Pathetic. Utterly fucking pathetic. 

He watched, helpless, useless, as Dario was cuffed and hooded again and dragged off.  _ Dragged _ , this time, not lead like they had been before. 

_ Keep your feet underneath you _ , he thought. The words popped out of his whirling mind.  _ Keep your feet or you’ll fall and they won’t let you back up _ . 


	4. Wolfe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wolfe suffers in his confinement, and meets the man responsible for his and Dario's kidnapping.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously:
> 
> "Wolfe watched, helpless, useless, as Dario was cuffed and hooded again and dragged off. Dragged, this time, not lead like they had been before. 
> 
> Keep your feet underneath you, he thought. The words popped out of his whirling mind. Keep your feet or you’ll fall and they won’t let you back up."

Wolfe stared at the closed door for what felt like hours after Dario had been dragged away. It was difficult to quell his panic, to steady his legs and slow his breathing, when he had no idea what was happening out there or how long before he would be next. 

It would undoubtedly have been easier to calm down if his cursed mind wasn’t feeding him so many options for what could be happening. If he didn’t feel so utterly, completely helpless. 

In the end he beat himself back under control with pure bludgeoning shame. He’d let them take Dario. Yes, he might not have been very effective in resisting, but he hadn’t even  _ tried _ . It wasn’t his fault, but nonetheless he couldn’t bear his craven part in it.

He stalked back to the cupboards and filing cabinets and wrenched them open to restart his pointless search for clues. He used his bad arm, too, in some nasty punishing impulse, and his fractured wrist throbbed so badly that he gasped.

_ You deserve that _ , he snarled to himself.  _ Be better than this, Christopher _ . 

That didn’t quite come out in his own thought-voice. He wanted to believe it was Nic, gently chiding. But it was as angry and bitter as the rest of him and it unmistakably came from his old mentor. The man who would happily let Wolfe hurt himself to prove a point. 

That made him stop and tuck his arm back inside his jacket again. No satisfaction for that fucker. None. 

Searching for information helped to centre and dull his wild thoughts. It gave him a task and a structure. He was always better with something to do. 

Nonetheless, he had unearthed nothing useful by the time the footsteps came again, merely a few empty Blanks, endless old receipts in standard common Greek and a lot of solidified mastic gum stuck in crevices. This was definitely an old office. The whole building had an abandoned industrial feel. 

The footsteps jolted him out of an attempt to remember as many large business areas in and around Alexandria as possible. 

His heart jumped with fear, but he stayed outwardly calm this time as the doorknob turned. It looked like the same two men as earlier, one blond and one dark, though he couldn’t be entirely certain as the only crystal-clear memory he had from earlier was the memory of Dario’s angry gaze. 

“Out you come.” Definitely Spanish-accented Greek. 

Wolfe only realised that he’d begun to automatically position his wrists for the cuffs when his bad wrist twinged. He gritted his teeth and ducked his head for the hood, too. 

“Well, this is an improvement on the other one,” one of the men scoffed in Spanish. In Greek, he added, sharply, “None of that.”

Hesitantly, Wolfe parsed that as the unlikely fact that he was being allowed to walk freely. 

“Don’t worry,” the other man said with a grin. His accent was much better. “If you try to run, you’ll regret it.”

Wolfe fought the urge to roll his eyes. Of course. He meekly walked out of the little office room, with one man behind him and one in front.

“See, I told you,” said the first man to speak, returning to his theme in Spanish. “Longer waiting time leads to cooler heads.” 

Wolfe wasn’t confident if they knew he could understand them or not. It seemed so utterly ridiculous and ignorant to be unaware that a Scholar of any calibre would have at least a passing familiarity with all Latin-descended languages that Wolfe wondered if it might all be a trap. False information.

“No, this one’s just older and wiser,” the man behind Wolfe said with a snort. “A lot older.”

Wolfe scowled, just for a moment, then felt absurdly relieved that something as pointless as vanity could still annoy him in this situation. 

Another element which could be a trap but could certainly be underestimation; they’d left his eyes un-obscured. 

He had an unerring sense of direction and a habit dating from his Iron Tower childhood of mentally mapping out buildings. He was confident that he could at least retrace his steps back to the previous room. The mental map of the route from there to the entrance was much less certain, since he’d been hooded then, but that might be doable too.

Just because he wasn’t going to run right now didn’t mean the option should be discarded altogether. 

Step by carefully filed away step, he was led to an area of the warehouse which looked more well-maintained than where he had come from. No, that was wrong. He could see the same signs of wear on the walls and floors, but this area had clearly started from a point of higher-quality materials. When they opened the door, a triangle of a large rug was revealed on the wooden floor. 

Definitely more luxurious than his previous confinement.

And as that sank in, his knees locked. 

_ No _ , he thought, faintly, over a sudden waterfall of empty sound crashing through his mind, scouring it clean with terror. 

It couldn’t be. 

But it could. He could reason the logic. He could calculate the probabilities. It wasn’t impossible. 

_ I’m here by accident. They’re after Dario _ , he protested weakly.  _ Except that I don’t know that, none of it, it’s all just supposition _ .

It could be Qualls. It  _ could _ be. 

His throat closed. He welcomed it, morbidly. He had so few ways available to kill himself if he was right.

The guards shoved him through the doorway. 

He couldn’t find his feet. Couldn’t even  _ feel _ his feet as he pitched forwards.

He tumbled to the floor. Everything went blank for a little while, as he curled into a (pointless) protective ball. His mind jittered with horror, and his ears strained to hear even the faintest whisper from the room in front of him. 

He didn’t want to open his eyes. By all the gods, he did not want to open his eyes. 

In the end it was a surprise coughing fit that forced his eyes open reflexively. His vision was blurred and pulsing at the edges in time with his thudding heartbeat. He couldn’t see anything, but that didn’t mean nobody was there.

It was difficult to persuade himself that Qualls wasn’t just going to materialise in front of him - just appear, between one tortured blink and the next. The thought made his skin crawl. He wanted to scratch the itch that produced, but movement might attract attention.

The breath whooshed in and out of him like a set of bellows - but he knew how to keep that quiet, he’d fallen back into that without even realising. Got to stay quiet. Can’t attract attention. 

The rug he was lying on was soft to touch, he realised after some time had passed without anything terrible occurring. His gaze traced the knotted geometric pattern, standing out in gold against the wine-red main weave. Nice, regular pattern. 

He let his gaze wander that predictable path again and again. It helped him claw reality back together. 

Both the tactile sensation and the colours were dulled by a thick layer of dust. That must be what had made him cough. 

His cheek ached where it lay against the rug. His arm throbbed. Combined with the painful cheek - he must have caught himself at least a little as he fell. 

Yes. He wasn’t cuffed. He wasn’t chained. Qualls was nowhere to be seen. Fancy that.

_ Calm down _ , he snarled at himself. 

But calming himself was easier said than done. Even thinking that name out loud had sent icicles driving through his limbs. He lay limply on the rug long after his breathing had slowed again, listening for Qualls’ terrible papery voice with such desperation that he knew he was at risk of creating a hallucination. 

Eventually he dragged himself to his feet. He felt utterly exhausted and phantom aches and pains had sprung up all over his body. Also a few aches grounded in reality; lying motionless on the floor for ages in his forties was apparently not ideal, even with the rug to cushion him a little. 

He surveyed the room, at last utilising his battered facilities to assess the surroundings for more than immediate threat level. 

This looked as if it had once been the office of somebody who considered themselves important; there was an expensive-looking desk and a large leather chair behind it. 

Wolfe felt a gentle pulse of anxiety as his mind drew a parallel to the old Archivist’s office, but he dismissed it with a mental slap. There were softer ways to do that; recalling pleasant time spent at Khalila’s desk with a steaming pot of tea, for example. But he’d wasted enough time pandering to his imagination as it was. 

Behind the desk was a huge, extravagant, floor-to ceiling window with intricately painted metal shutters. He could see that they were locked from the inside, and switched his attention to a clear smaller window at the side of the room. He headed there on unsteady legs. But his optimism wasn’t rewarded; that window was locked and it faced a brick wall. 

Still. He pressed his cheek against the cold, grimy glass to see better. It didn’t back straight onto the brick wall. He might be able to wriggle out, if he could break the window, and see if that gap led anywhere. 

He looked around the room for anything heavy enough to break the glass, but then he heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps approaching. 

_ You fool _ , he raged at himself as he stepped away from the window.  _ You wasted your potential escape time imagining a ghost. Pointless. Useless. Pathetic.  _

He stood still and quiet as the door opened, but couldn’t stop some of his self-directed anger spilling out in a glower. 

The man standing in the doorway returned his gaze calmly through his steel-wire eyeglasses. He looked young - though, Wolfe thought bitterly, more and more of humanity was starting to fall into that description for him. 

“Good evening, Scholar Wolfe. I do apologise for keeping you.” The man’s polite voice was doubtless supposed to be reassuring, but it made Wolfe’s skin crawl. So he kept still and silent and watched as the man entered the room. To Wolfe’s surprise, he offered his hand to shake. 

Wolfe ignored the gesture entirely. 

“I really do apologise,” the young man said in an earnest tone of voice that Wolfe didn’t trust an inch. “You shouldn’t even be here.”

Wolfe allowed his eyebrows to rise at that. “And yet, here I am.” He noted the Spanish accent again, although this time so faint that he might have missed it if he hadn’t been listening for it. 

The man pulled a face. “Yes, and injured too, I see.”

Wolfe wondered how obvious his probably-broken wrist was, until he remembered about his split earlobe, now no doubt clogged with dust, and the dried blood still encrusting his neck and jawline.

_ So you  _ are  _after Dario, then_ , he thought. 

“You know my name,” he stated baldly, and waited. 

The man bobbed his head. He had mousy brown hair that shifted slightly with his movements. He was very plain. Very forgettable. Unassuming. All qualities that made Wolfe even more nervous. He knew too well the dangers of a mild-looking man. 

“Oh, you are very well known. My name is Mondragon, and I must apologise yet again for your situation.”

Wolfe decided to push a little. He snorted. “And what form will your apology take?”

“You will, of course, be moved to more comfortable surroundings.”

Wolfe scoffed. “Excellent. And what will happen to me, Mondragon, in these improved surroundings?”

Mondragon shrugged. Yes, Wolfe thought, very Spanish indeed. “I will see how much the Library will pay for the release of such a famed Scholar.”

Wolfe laughed at that, a sharp yelp of sound that he couldn’t quite help. “Infamous, perhaps.”

“As you say.” Mondragon waved his hand dismissively. “Well-connected, then.” He smiled, only it didn’t look like a smile. “I’m sure the Lord Commander will be attentive to news of your absence.”

_ Don’t you touch Nic, don’t mention his name, you shit-eating bastard _ . Wolfe held back the black, sick words that came, largely, from an older and more awful time. Sweat beaded cold on the back of his neck.

“And the Archivist will surely be concerned about her favourite teacher.”

_ What else does he know? _

“Firstly, I suspect if she’d had more than merely me as her teacher, I would not be her favourite. Secondly, I believe her concern regarding my welfare will pale in comparison with the fact that you hold her husband.”

Something dark flitted across Mondragon’s face. “Oh, yes.” He put a finger to his chin in mockery of thought. “Perhaps I might try to wring some ransom from Don Santiago, too.”

“Señor,” Wolfe corrected, in the worst Spanish accent he could muster. Let Mondragon continue to think he didn't speak it. 

_ So, Dario might not have been offered this cushy deal …  _

Mondragon rolled his eyes. “Yes. As if signing a few bits of paper can change the fact of whose cunt he fell from. Spanish gossip rags are still obsessed with him, I assure you.” 

_ Real vitriol, there. And no ransom planned. If he could trust a single word this man said. _

Mondragon clapped his hands together, hard enough that it might have made Wolfe jump if he hadn’t been half-expecting it. Mondragon had let more slip from that comment than he wanted to, Wolfe suspected. 

“Right, then. Let’s get you moved somewhere more comfortable, Scholar.”

“No.” Wolfe felt an aching, heavy swoop in his stomach as he spoke. Like a door closing, like all other options disappearing in a sudden vacuum. 

Would Nic be angry with him, for this, or resigned? Both, he suspected. 

Mondragon’s eyebrows rose. 

“You know who I am. You know I taught the Archivist, so you know I taught Santiago. Let’s not dissemble. What are you planning to do with him?”

“That is none of your concern.”

_ Play, very gently, to Mondragon’s biases.  _

“He is a self-important little ass who scraped through my class by the skin of his teeth, but he is still my concern.” 

He knew he was playing an impossible game, trying to find this out while trying to minimise his relationship to Dario. He wished his head was clearer. 

“Who’s dissembling now, Wolfe?” Mondragon scowled. “I know you were more than a teacher to your little class of heretical revolutionaries.” 

Oh. This again. If Wolfe had a  _ millieme _ for every time someone had assumed he had held a leadership role during their time on the run, rather than a frantic, reactive one, he would be able to buy half of Alexandria.

He made a dismissive hand motion. “I tried to keep them all alive. I did not entirely succeed.”

“And if I promised I would keep Santiago alive?”

The cold sweat spread from Wolfe’s neck to the rest of his body. Mondragon clearly knew what he was implying. Did he know enough about Wolfe to be doing it for effect? Certainly, the basic elements of his imprisonment were available for public perusal if one so cared to search. 

“Alive is a broad term.”

“It is. Let me be clear, if you reject my very generous offer, Wolfe, I don’t have anywhere else set up to take you. You’d have to share quarters with Santiago.” His eyes narrowed. “You have surely had enough of prisons by now.”

It felt as if a sheet of glass dropped between them at that casual, cruel dig. Some time passed, instant and yet ever-lasting, in which Wolfe wavered between the impulse to leap for Mondragon’s throat and the need to drop to his knees and vomit. 

“And what would my classification of ‘alive’ be, under such circumstances?” said a voice that, presumably, belonged to him. 

“Oh, I still think you’re very lucrative. Don’t worry, Scholar. You only need to watch.”


	5. Khalila

It was nearly midnight.

Khalila did her best to appear focused as Captain Alamasi summarised what they knew so far. 

They didn’t know much more than they’d known in the initial aftermath, in Khalila’s opinion, but she appreciated that perspective and patience were not her strong points right now.

  * Wolfe and Dario were the only two Scholars still unaccounted for.
  * Signs of a struggle in Dario’s office, though no sign of forced entry. 
  * Eyewitnesses reporting the unaccounted-for group of ‘soldiers, escorting two Scholars’, one heard speaking in Spanish. 
  * The wounded Spaniard they currently had in the cells. 
  * Wolfe’s earring, found bloodstained on the verge leading from the Lighthouse to the mainland. 



At that last item, Alamasi looked towards Commander Santi, who nodded and briefly raised the earring above his head for the room to see. It managed nothing more than a brief golden gleam in the too-bright glows before he had wrapped it safely inside his fist again. 

Khalila couldn’t blame him. She would be clinging to anything that Dario had left behind too, had he done so.

 _And why was that not so? Had he been unconscious?_ _Were his hands bound? Had his earring already been ripped out of his ear and pocketed by his captor?_

Her thoughts were torn from their bloody ruts as someone asked;

“Is that definitely Scholar Wolfe’s earring?”

Khalila expected to see Santi’s expression flow into the relaxed mask that meant his fury, but instead he merely made a frustrated grumble in the back of his throat and yanked at his shirt collar. That was his third shirt of the day, at least. Khalila sympathised, she’d had to put a slip on underneath her dress after her night prayer to mask her constant anxious perspiration. 

“Yes.” The rescue came from an unexpected source; Obscurist Magnus Eskander. He had been silent until now. “The blood on the earring held fading traces of Chr- of Wolfe’s quintessence.” 

“Thank you, Obscurist Magnus,” Khalila said, half as acknowledgment and half to help hide that little slip of Eskander’s tongue. So many elements of that relationship must be difficult, but remembering his son’s chosen surname and preferred form of address was a persistent problem. 

She looked down at her notes and tried to corral her scattered thoughts. “Ambassador Santiago, you wish to speak with the man we captured planting the explosive?”

“Yes, your Maj - yes, Archivist. Archivist Seif.” Alvaro caught her eye and winced his apologies. Khalila flicked her gaze away in forgiveness and dismissal of the honorific she'd rejected and the unadorned title which she hated.

So many loose tongues, tonight, from people worried for their family. She must keep hers under control. 

“Very well. I will arrange an escort to take you down to the-”

“Really?” Alamasi’s sharp voice made Khalila jump. She put one hand in her lap, where she could ball it into a fist unobserved, and raised her gaze to meet Alamasi’s. 

“Captain?” she asked, politely. 

“You’re going to let Spain dive in? When there are multiple indications of Spanish involvement in this?”

“What, _exactly_ -” Alvaro leaned forwards on his elbows.

“Speaking Spanish doesn’t mean being Spanish,” Vargas said, more loudly, talking over Alvaro with her favourite pet peeve. Khalila was appalled until she saw Vargas give Alvaro a stern sideways look and him press his lips together and sit back in his chair. 

“Regardless,” Alamasi snapped, returning her attention to Khalila, “it’s not an avenue to close down this quickly.”

“I assure you we will be examining all avenues thoroughly,” Khalila said, while her fingernails dug into her palm under the table. 

“ _All_ avenues?” Alamasi’s tone became urgent. 

“Captain,” Santi said, in a voice that rang like a bell in the small room. Khalila should have found his return to command reassuring, but instead it made her heart rattle in her chest. 

Alamasi ignored her superior and carried on staring at Khalila as if trying to communicate something unpleasant.

Whatever the message was, Khalila wasn’t receiving it. 

Did the captain want … oh Allah, _no_ , did she want Khalila to permit torture?

It couldn’t be that. Surely. Nic would never agree. _Surely!_

One of her fingernails broke the dry, weak skin of her old burns and she inhaled sharply at the pain. 

“What are you referring to, captain?” she asked. Keeping her voice steady made her heart race even faster. 

If that was the suggestion, it should come into the light now, here, in front of everyone, so that she could make her stance on it utterly unambiguous. And then, what would happen? _Allahu Amal_. _Allah knows best._

But what came out of Alamasi’s mouth next was entirely different:

“We need to keep in mind that Scholar Santiago may have been involved in this.”

 _Involved?_ bleated Khalila’s tired mind _. Of course he’s involved, he’s gone!_

Then the true meaning of Alamasi’s words hit her like a blow to the head.

 _They think Dario might be to_ blame _?_

She reeled from the impact, so much so that she needed to cup her face with her hands to confirm that the world was still in place around her. 

“Are you insane?” Alvaro asked in a low voice.

He’d spoken Khalila’s mind, which was just as well because she was too busy trying to catch Nic’s eye. 

Nic didn’t want to look at her. Nic was staring at the fist which held Wolfe’s earring. 

_Look at me, you coward_ , she thought with fury born from terror. _Look me in the eye and tell me you believe this grasping, desperate slander._

“Nic.” Her voice shook even on that one syllable, as informality broke through her careful facade. 

He winced and addressed the table. “We’re just considering all options, Kh-Archivist Seif.”

“On what grounds?” she and Alvaro asked in almost perfect unison. 

Nic frowned and finally looked up at her, with concern in his eyes. “You’re bleeding.”

There was a general flurry of alarm. Khalila wanted to scream at them. _That_ got a reaction? Dario could be bleeding! Right now! 

She swiped at the blood that she hadn’t even noticed was smeared onto her cheek. “It’s nothing. Just my hand. On what grounds are you considering Dario as involved in this kidnapping?”

Nic sighed and pulled his chair a touch forwards. When he raised his eyes to her again, he was clearly Lord Commander Santi again. 

“Firstly, it appears that Santiago’s door wasn’t locked, or that he unlocked it to permit the intruders to enter.”

“But we already know they were dis-”

Santi looked sharply at Alvaro, and the ambassador snapped his mouth closed with a hot glare. 

“Secondly, we suspect there is Spanish involvement in this event, which may or may not be connected to the rise in anti-Library feeling in some areas of Spain.”

 _Like Catalonia, Dario’s family seat_ , Khalila filled in. _But Dario deliberately removed himself from that!_ she protested inwardly. Outwardly she tightened her clasped hands in her lap to the point of agony and allowed the Lord Commander to finish. 

Alvaro, however, did not; “One of the suspicious group identified was overheard speaking Spanish, you say? Spanish, or Catalan?”

 _Castellà o català?_ was what he actually said, in angry, proud Catalan, and it took Khalila a moment to focus enough to both translate and understand the point. 

“It may not matter, ambassador,” she said, with difficulty. “Dario speaks both, after all.”

Alvaro stared at her in disbelief. All of the emotions that she was trying to keep restrained were pouring out of his eyes and into her soul. She shrank from the heat of it. 

“Continue, Commander,” she said, perhaps a touch too loudly. 

“And thirdly,” Santi continued, finally looking at her, “The eyewitnesses who spotted the suspicious group believe that one of the Scholars might have been being helped to walk. Just one. Not two.”

She wanted to say ten thousand things in response to that, but she couldn’t look Nic in the eye and say them. Not when that theory would mean that Wolfe had been the one unable to walk without assistance.

Still. She bit back the ‘Nic’ that sat on her tongue: 

“Commander, is this your primary direction of enquiry?”

_Do you really think so little of Dario? How is that possible, after everything we’ve all gone through together?_

She poked her index finger into the tiny bleeding wound on her palm. It gave her something else to focus on.

“We have others,” Santi confirmed, frowning at her as if he could somehow tell what she was doing under the table. 

Something loosened in her chest, though it didn’t make her feel any better. It felt as though she had needed that tension to keep her functioning and now her body was flailing. Lopsided. 

“I should fucking hope so,” Alvaro snarled. 

“Ambassador,” Vargas said sharply. Reproachfully, yes, but it was a kindness, right now, to stop Alvaro causing some sort of diplomatic disaster. Dimly, Khalila wondered what the history was between those two.

Her chest ached and she wanted to breathe raggedly. She couldn’t stay in this meeting any longer without embarrassing herself. 

She got to her feet. Surprised, everyone clambered to their feet too. 

“Investigate as you must,” she said, without looking at Santi, at _Nic_ , and left the room. 

Her guards were taken aback by her sudden movement too, but she was relieved to see her lead, Captain Gurung, walking a step behind her. 

Tears had started streaming down her cheeks, but her captain made no mention of them.

“Where to, Archivist Seif?”

She faltered at that. _Home_ had been her driving instinct, but now that she considered it, the thought of spending time in a space where every single atom was infused with Dario’s presence - with Dario’s _absence_ \- felt like sandpaper on her soul. 

“My office.” She walked faster, channelling her emotions into moving her legs as quickly as possible without breaking into a jog. “We’re taking the stairs.”

She had intended to bury her face in the comfortable sofa in the alcove and sob, but by the time that she reached her office and closed the door firmly behind her, the hot, tight, wound-up feeling had lessened.

It was after midnight, yet she didn’t feel tired. Empty and upset and pathetic, but not sleepy. 

Her breathing was ragged thanks to the many flights of stairs and her face was still soaked with tears. She could feel where the sobs sat in her chest, but it would be an effort to reach for them now. 

Instead, she sat at her desk and stared blankly at the paperwork piles. She’d already spent a lot of the day burying herself in minutiae to avoid thinking about the situation. She might as well continue that.

Her hand stung as she reached for a pen. Oh, yes. That.

She turned her palm upwards and examined the little cut. It had already stopped bleeding, but she thought writing might make it start again. 

And yet, she was sitting down now. Getting up felt like a horrible effort. The thought of rooting through the little medicine cabinet next to the water fountain felt like the equivalent of lifting a heavy rock. Especially since almost every item in it was more usually used on Dario.

With a sigh, she took off her headscarf and wound it around her hand in a makeshift bandage. Only after she’d done so did it occur to her to see what scarf she had dirtied with her own blood. 

Ah. A pretty silver silk one. 

Oh well. She had plenty more, praise be to Allah. 

She reached for the pen again and delved into her paperwork as if it held answers. But like a compass seeking north, like a tongue poking at an open gum, her thoughts sought Dario. 

Such a vivid imagination she had. Such a curse.

“Oh Allah,” she whispered into the silence. “Help me to bear this. Give me the patience to accept your will in this.”

Without quite intending to, her injured hand drifted across the page in front of her, writing a comforting verse. 

لَا يُكَلِّفُ اللَّهُ نَفْسًا إِلَّا وُسْعَهَا

 _Allah does not task any soul beyond its capacity_. 

* * *

A knock on the door made her jump and her heart leap painfully in her chest. She felt fuzzy and slow, like she’d been asleep, but she’d definitely been writing something when the knock came, hadn’t she? She checked the page in front of her, too quickly to properly register what she'd been writing. 

لَا يُكَلِّفُ اللَّهُ نَفْسًا إِلَّا وُسْعَهَا

لَا يُكَلِّفُ اللَّهُ نَفْسًا إِلَّا وُسْعَهَا

لَا يُكَلِّفُ اللَّهُ نَفْسًا إِلَّا وُسْعَهَا

لَا يُكَلِّفُ اللَّهُ نَفْسًا إِلَّا وُسْعَهَا

The ink was still wet. It was fine. She was fine.

There were a lot of unread messages on her Codex. 

Santi, probably. 

She didn’t even know if anyone else had followed her out, as they should have done. Maybe they’d dismissed her, for once; not the Archivist Magister anymore but Dario’s wife and far too involved, and carried on the meeting without her.

Her stomach lurched. She breathed in and out carefully and steadily until the sensation passed, then opened her Codex and nervously read the latest message.

As she thought it would be, it was from her security lead, Captain Gurung, alerting her of persons who wished entrance to her office.

 _Chief Printer Brightwell and Scholar Schreiber_.

She checked the ornate little clock on her desk. (Thomas had made it for her, as a matter of fact. It held a sweet and simplified representation of the solar system.)

Yes, it was past two o’clock in the morning. 

Her stomach knotted tight. There was never a good reason for anyone to want her at this time of the morning. Especially not those two. 

She hurriedly covered her hair and told Gurung to let them in. They came straight in, both fully dressed despite the time.

“Are you all right?” all three of them said in unison. 

She blinked, and gestured for one of them to go first. 

Thomas folded his arms. “When were you going to tell us about Dario and Wolfe?”

Khalila opened her mouth and nothing came out. 

Had she not told them? That … that was ridiculous! It had happened over twelve hours ago! Why, out of all of the people that she had written to, had none of them been her dearest friends?

 _Because telling them would mean it was real and true_ , said a voice in the back of her head. She tried to ignore it, even as it echoed. 

“I apologise,” she said, and to her utmost relief her voice stayed steady. 

Jess blinked and an odd, hurt expression crossed his face. 

Thomas watched her in that cool, analytical way that he sometimes had when it felt like he was reducing the other person to machinery and trying to disassemble said machinery to see how it worked. Normally she hated that expression; it didn’t suit her gentle, lovely friend. This time it was far easier to bear than the rawness in Jess’ face. 

“How did you find out?” she asked eventually, just to break the silence.

“Nic,” said Thomas, at the same time that Jess said,

“Glain.”

They gave each other little half smiles, little wordless sounds which meant ‘Oh, yes, you’re right.’ Their unspoken connection made Khalila’s heart ache.

“Nic _officially_ told us,” Jess said, with a nod at Thomas, and to be fair he told us fast. Probably within a couple of hours of the lockdown.”

Khalila tried to think that far back, but found that she couldn’t.

“But Glain told us first. Troll took advantage of some … hierarchy instability? To pass a message.” Jess tilted his head at her questioningly.

She looked back at him blankly. 

“We heard you relieved Nic of his command,” Thomas prompted. 

“Oh that.” She vaguely remembered that, yes, in the first terrible moments of the news. “That didn’t last very long. It was just to allow him some space for the initial shock.”

Thomas could never hide anything in his expression and so she saw the flash of satisfaction and she knew what must be coming as Jess opened his mouth - 

“I’d like you both to leave, please.”

“What space have you allowed yourself, for the shock?” Jess carried on speaking right over her. He took a step towards her. She took a step backwards. 

“Jess!”

“Khalila. Can I speak to Khalila?” he asked, with an odd tone in his voice. “Or must we address the Archivist Magister? The Pharaoh of the Library?” 

“Jess.” She sighed and poked at the soft, fragile scab on her palm. “Jess, I can’t.”

“Can’t what?” Thomas asked. He loomed over her and Jess like a mountain. Heart racing, she spun on her heel and marched to the window. 

“I have to do my job,” she told her reflection pleadingly. The glass was cool on her hands. 

“You can still do your damned job, after you take a moment to have some kind of emotional reaction to this!”

She stared at Jess’ reflection as he approached, rather than turning around. She could feel his gaze boring into the back of her head. “I _have_ had an emotional reaction to this. Several. All of them were awful and none of them were useful.”

“Emotions don’t have to be useful.”

She made a strangled sound. “ _You_ are telling _me_ this, Jess Brightwell?”

“I remember Wolfe and I telling you that there was nothing wrong with crying at terrible situations.”

She remembered that, too, after the horror of Philadelphia’s destruction. The trigger for her tears then had been telling Jess about her and Dario’s failure to save a dying, burning man as he tried to crawl out of the ruined city. That still appeared regularly in her nightmares, and unfairly she was suddenly furious with Jess for reminding her of it. 

“Actually, Wolfe said that we all deal with things in our own way and there’s no shame in any of it.” There was a bloody smear on the window pane when she moved her hand. Hastily she wiped it away with her sleeve and hoped neither of them had noticed it. “So stop trying to _break_ how I’m dealing with this!”

That made Jess look away. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to mess you up.”

“Then what did you mean to do?” she demanded, feeding off her flash of anger to turn to face him at last. “Why are you here? Did you think I’d tell you all about the investigation?”

His jaw set. “Not at all, Archivist Magister.”

She glared at him. She should be satisfied about that enforced distance, about the use of her title, but it all felt like nails down a chalkboard. 

“We just thought you might like a hug,” Thomas said, very quietly.

The words rang a strange, soft chime inside her and her fingertips started to tremble in unison with its resonance as she looked up at Thomas’ sad face.

Then Jess spoke again and everything shattered.

“Glain’s already gone to Nic with a crate of beer and sparring kit.”

At that name, her careful, glacial calm disappeared under the waves of searing emotion that she had been trying to suppress.

“Don’t talk to me about Nic!” she shouted, loud enough that both of them flinched back. “He doesn’t need coddling! I hope Glain knees him in the crotch, he deserves worse!”

Thomas’ eyes were wide but Jess’ were narrow, intent, questioning. Pushing her on.

“Do you know what that bastard has done?” She strode straight through the middle of the two of them to pace her office in short but rapid steps. “He’s saying that Dario might be to blame! That he might have engineered the whole thing, or helped, or known it was coming! How dare he say that? How dare he think, for a _second_ , that Dario would do that? It’s awful!”

Her legs wobbled. Jess’ arm wound around her waist, steadying her, but she shoved him away. 

She saw his stance shift, as if he was preparing for her to attack. 

That was understandable, she thought with some small part of her mind, bearing in mind what had happened the last time Jess had stood in front of her when Dario was in danger.

“It’s so unfair!” she said, as she shook all over. “What does Dario have to do to show people that he’s not conspiring against the Library? Die?”

Her ears caught up with her mouth and her stomach rebelled, sending her to her knees with a retch.

Before she could push herself back up again, Jess and Thomas were by her side. Cursing her own weakness, she allowed herself to lean into Thomas and let Jess hold her hand. 

(He held the one that didn’t hurt. That couldn’t be coincidental. It was difficult to hide weakness from Jess.)

The anger was draining out of her. Everything was draining out of her like water down a plughole.

“I know Nic’s just doing his job,” she said into Thomas’ chest. “I just … No-one would ever assume that of Wolfe. And what if they don’t look as hard for Dario? What if the two of them have been separated and they find Wolfe and then they _stop_?”

 _What if they leave Dario alone?_ The sheer terror of that thought put ice into her veins and made her heart throb in her temples. She sobbed, then. Each sob ached deep in her chest and rasped her throat raw.

“You wouldn’t let them stop,” Thomas said reassuringly. 

She shook her head and tried to speak coherently, if brokenly. “You weren’t there. They didn’t want to tell me. They didn’t think I’d do the right thing. Dario’s wife, not the Archivist. So I have to be in charge, be their Pharaoh, so that they trust me, so that they tell me.” Her voice sounded choked and pathetic and hysterical.

“They?” Thomas asked, stroking her back. 

Khalila hiccoughed. _Everyone_ , she wanted to reply, but she recognised the absurdity of her own panicked thoughts. She remembered, at last, the strained, unhappy look in Nic’s eyes as he’d spoken. She still couldn’t bring herself to stop being furious at him, but he didn’t deserve to become the faceless enemy. She loved him too much for that. 

“Alamasi. Nic. I don’t know what the rest of the Curia thought about the idea. I didn’t stay long enough to find out. I couldn’t.”

Thomas nodded and made an acknowledging sound that echoed, deep and soothing, where her ear was pressed to his chest.

Jess squeezed her hand. “Well, then. If they do stop looking, then we’ll just have to take over.”

She could have kissed Jess for not brushing off her silly, paranoid fears. 

He continued; “Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve found someone we weren’t supposed to find.” He nudged his head against Thomas’ shoulder and Thomas ruffled his hair with a fondness that made Khalila sob even harder. 

She blinked, surprised, as Jess took her hand and raised it to her forehead - where her hairline was showing. 

"Thank you," she mumbled, fixing the headscarf until she was covered again. She hadn't even noticed. 

"You're always welcome, sister," he said in English. She smiled as best she could. 

They sat like that, piled on the floor together, until Khalila’s heart had stopped feeling like it was about to force its way out of her skin. 

In hindsight, she could see why Jess had been worried. She felt better now. Weaker, but less brittle. 

Thomas’ shirt was cold and wet against her cheek, and the displeasure of that on her senses was just about the only thing keeping her awake. 

Then they all jumped as a harsh sound broke the silence. The boys made startled sounds, but she sighed. 

“It’s just my alarm for the dawn prayer.” 

Now that she was paying attention, she could see the first lightening of the sky seeping into the room.

“Would you like us to stay while you pray?” Thomas asked, handing her a handkerchief. 

She nodded and scrabbled for a handkerchief to try to make her face less of a mess. “Thank you. Thank you, both of you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All Arabic mistakes are mine, feel free to point them out.


End file.
